This contribution is an introduction into the problems of ecohydrological assessment of the river habitat. It offers a brief characteristic of basic legislation tools related to the evaluation of ecohydrological condition of rivers – the Water Framework Directive EU (WFD) and the directive for evaluation of hydromorphological parameters of rivers (ČSN 14614, 2005).
The issue of defining reference status of natural or near natural rivers in present cultural landscape is also discussed. Basic foreign and national approaches, principles and selected methods of ecohydrological research of rivers are briefly characterized.